The long voyage of the M.V. Sun Sea with its 490 refugee claimants from Sri Lanka reminds me of another, similar voyage almost 70 years ago. But the big difference is the people who spent what surely must have been three terrible months on board their small ship were allowed to set foot on Canadian soil, whereas the ill-fated souls aboard the S.S. St. Louis were not. Continue reading
Current Events
Foolish $9 Billion Plan to Build New Jails
If you live in a rural area, as many of us in this area do, you’ll maybe know the old saying, “the (insert name fruit or vegetable here) want picking.” Well, I’ve got rows of beans that “want picking,” and hundreds of pounds of potatoes virtually crying out from underground to, “please, please, please dig us up soon or heaven knows what we’ll do.” Continue reading
Shipping Radioactive Waste Through the Great Lakes
The apparent lack of public concern about the proposed shipment of huge amounts of radioactive waste scrap metal from the Bruce Nuclear Plant from the Port of Owen Sound, through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway and on to Sweden for recycling is unfortunate. Continue reading
Hopeness forest gorillas and those that overreacted during G20 are 2 totally different kinds of beasts
Just a few kilometres down our road here in the resurgent wilderness of Hope Ness on the Bruce Peninsula is perhaps one of the strangest, and certainly one of the most unexpected sights one would expect to find here of all places.
Just where the road passes through the deepest, darkest, most mysterious section of the Hope Ness-Hope Bay forest there’s been for many years a large group of jungle animals hanging on the tree trunks and branches on either side.
The Dead Demand the Truth
The war in Afghanistan where several thousand Canadian troops are serving to help bring peace, stability and good government to a country that’s never had it, and possibly doesn’t even want it (at least in the democratic sense that we in this part of the world think of it) has hit home. Continue reading
Hearing Set for Residential Development Near Native Burial Sites
A long-simmering dispute on the Bruce Peninsula over residential development on private property in the vicinity of native burial sites is the subject of a lengthy hearing set to begin this coming Tuesday before the Ontario government’s new Environmental Review Tribunal.
At issue specifically is the Niagara Escarpment Commission’s refusal last fall to approve development permits for two lots of record in a provincially approved subdivision. That was despite a staff report recommending approval, and despite the fact the NEC two years earlier permitted development on two other lots in the same subdivision. The people whose applications were denied appealed. Continue reading
What’s With the Weather?
Out west on the Canadian prairies they’re praying for the rain to stop falling. Here in Grey-Bruce and much of southern Ontario we’d like nothing better than a few old-fashioned rainy days. Continue reading
Are Safeguards Adequate at the Bruce Nuclear Site?
Worse has happened, and is still happening, to Lake Huron and the other Great Lakes than the spill of “mineral oil” into the lake from the Bruce Nuclear site after a recent transformer fire there. Continue reading
Same-sex Marriage Legislation
There could be, and there definitely should be a reasonable, balanced, well-informed public discussion about the pros and cons of the Liberal government’s proposed Civil Marriage Act. But unfortunately much of the opposition to the controversial same-sex marriage legislation seems rooted in old-fashioned homophobia; and I, for one, am turned off by it. Continue reading
Aboriginal Fishery
As that great 20th Century philosopher Yogi Berra once famously said, “it’s starting to look like déjà vu all over again.” I’m pretty sure what he was referring to had something to do with baseball, and not fish, and specifically not the here-we-go-again issues surrounding the Aboriginal fishery in our area waters. Continue reading
